It is known in the art to add various types of flavoring materials to animal feeds of a vegetable nature such as corn, alfalfa meal, soybean meal, and mixtures thereof with or without minerals, vitamins and other additives, e.g., methionine, Vitamin E and Vitamin A. Vanillin and other flavoring substances have also been added. In some cases such additives may improve the odor of the feed but do not necessarily improve its attractiveness to animals such as beef cattle, including calves, dairy cattle, swine, including baby pigs, sheep, including lambs, and goats, including kids. These animals differ from each other in their likes and dislikes and some of them such as cattle, sheep and goats have more than one stomach.
It is very difficult during certain times of the year to get animals to eat dry feed and in the case of some animals such as baby pigs, it would be desirable to increase the attractiveness of vegetable type feed so that they can be taken off of sows milk and fed with this type of feed at an earlier date. This would make it possible for the sows to have three litters of pigs a year rather than two.
In general, animals which are raised for meat and also dairy cattle are fed two different types of vegetable feed, namely, roughage, including hay and corn silage, and a supplemental ration usually containing corn, alfalfa meal, soybean meal, minerals and vitamins. In the case of an average dairy cow, for example, this supplemental ration might be within the range of 10 to 20 pounds per day. It can be prepared in the form of a ground mixture with or without pelleting.
For various reasons it would be desirable to increase the attractiveness of feeds to animals. One reason is to improve the general health of the animals. Another reason is to increase the feed intake of animals, especially herbivorous animals which are raised to be slaughtered for meat purposes, thereby increasing the weight of the animals and bringing them to market at an earlier date. A principal food of herbivorous animals is corn.